On this episode of Spark, a few of our favourite interviews from the past year, all about rebooting your life. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).
Play audio:
You can also listen to individual stories below.
Why Work Doesn’t Work
Ever wonder how much work you actually do in a day? There can be a lot of distractions between meetings, your manager’s questions, impromptu pot-lucks and gab fests. Some days it can feel like it’s impossible to get anything done. That’s because according to Jason Fried it IS. Jason is the co-founder of 37 Signals, a company that builds web-based collaboration tools. He’s also the co-author of the bestseller Rework – a book all about how to make work work better. Although he himself is a manager, Jason has no problem blaming workplace inefficiencies on meetings and managers. (Runs 22:49)
Play audio:
Designing for Solitude
On Spark, we’ve talked a lot about the importance of solitude in the midst of a connected world. You know, the idea of putting our devices away for a bit to “get away from it all”. But what if you did the opposite? What if there were tech tools that actually helped us achieve solitude? Nora speaks with Ben Fullerton, a director of user experience at Method Design in San Francisco, where they are thinking about these very questions from a design point of view. (Runs 15:06)
Play audio:
Designing More Joy
When we think about designing something: a chair, a radio show, a fund raiser for the local school, we think about cost, or popularity or effectiveness, but how about joy? Are there ways we can design for joy in our work and life. Ingrid Fetell thinks so. She calls it The Aesthetics of Joy, and has a blog and a book-in-progress about what neuroscience and psychology can tell us about emotional response, and how it can affect the way we think about design. (Runs 9:32)
Play audio:
great interview… more info on his ideas?
… that is, ideas on how to create solitude using technology…
I thought this was nuts. All of my devices have an "Off" switch.
Just heard a bit of the 'Re-work" interview. Sparked my interest enough, no pun intenede, to go to your site and listen to the whole interview. Having been in the work force for over 40 years I was pleased with the direction of his philosophy.
Mike
I was fascinated by Ingrid Fetell's comments and went to her site. What a treasure of visuals and thoughts to bring joy – a true surprise.
Nora, this was a great remix, and a super start to my New Year. It tied in really well to some stuff we're talking about in my learning communities. How do we teach our students about mindful use of technology?
Glad you liked it. I think idea of mindfulness and technology has a lot of 'heat' to it. I think we're going to start hearing more about it. Exciting that you're talking about it in an educational context!